Law school to help poetry

Now that school is back in session, I keep thinking: Why am I here? Why did I choose to put myself through the torture of law school? It made me realize that I did this for anybody who has ever had their creative work stolen. Anybody who has written a song, poem, book, etc… and had their work ripped off. More specifically, I am in law school because I see that there are a several companies who prey on artists. These companies will take your work, steal the copyright, and make you pay by having you think you have won a huge prize. I want to put an end to the scams and allow poets to express themselves freely without fear that they are prey. This is the whole reason that I started this company in the first place but I have such limited control as 1 web based company owner. I will have a much greater impact as an intellectual property lawyer than an overworked company owner. That does not mean that I am ‘canning’ this company or the website. I will make sure that Poetrywithmeaning.com stays around as long as I do or even longer. Thus, I realized today that my reason for going to law school is to help others, not because I hate myself.

I am looking to do some work with other like minded people who have a desire to stop intellectual property theft (poetry theft in specific). If you know of any firms, people, organizations that I or any other members of Poetrywithmeaning.com can be involved in, please let us know. I am looking myself for opportunities in San Francisco and the Bay area but our community is world wide.

Stop the theft!

Sincerely, Bob Mortland

Responses

6 comments so far.

1. Joseph Breunig says:

   Hello -

   If you believe that your website's content is being pirated on the internet, then there is a website dedicated to helping out. It's called: www.copyscape.com

   Joe

2. Allen Taylor says:

   I'm a big believer in Copyscape. It's a great website.

   I subscribe to Google Alerts for all my URLs, my name and important keywords. If anyone is scraping my content then I know about it. I send them a cease and desist letter. If they don't respond then I notify their ISP and their advertisers.

   Allen
   <a href="http://www.world-class-poetry.com" title="poetry">World Class Poetry</a>

3. Bob Mortland says:

   Thats awesome... I am going to check those out! Thanks guys

4. Allen Taylor says:

   Check this out:

   http://newsandmediablog.com/2007/09/01/news-and-media-giant-viacom-playing-bully-with-copyright-again/

   The guy runs for school board, creates a video and uploads it to YouTube. Viacom uses it without permission on VH1. The original creator records the VH1 video and uploads it to YouTube. Viacom complains and asks YouTube to remove it.

   Bastards!

5. Bob Mortland says:

   WOW, thats crazy

6. thedeep says:

   One word: Opportunism